The next, he claims the United States is going to annex the Strait of Hormuz. And in others, he teases out an imminent deal to end a six-month war that has gone pretty much nowhere, only to acknowledge, a day later, that talks aren’t taking place at all. The pattern continued this week.
Trump took to Truth Social and declared that annual U.S. military exercises with South Korea will be pared back considerably due to the cost, Seoul’s lackluster support for reopening the Middle East’s prime waterway and that "based on my very good relationship with" Kim Jong Un, the maneuvers sent a "totally inappropriate and hostile signal" to North Korea. While the news caught many off-guard and appeared to be another one of Trump’s random acts, there may be more to the story. Trump is reportedly eager to meet with the North Korean dictator again and is pushing his advisers to set up a summit, perhaps on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in China later this year.
Asked on Wednesday whether he intended to shake hands with Kim again, the president had a ready reply: "Yeah, I will be." With everything on Trump’s plate, why is he interested in dipping his toes into the turbulent waters of U.S.-North Korea nuclear diplomacy? Several explanations are at play. Although the White House continues to describe Trump as the most successful U.S. president since the days of Abraham Lincoln, the truth is that on foreign policy, Trump’s resume is quite thin.
The deal-making prowess he highlighted on the campaign trail hasn’t resulted in anything of substance. All of Trump’s landmark diplomatic initiatives are stalled, if not fallen apart. His 15-point peace plan in Gaza?
Lost in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Hamas’ refusal to hand over its weapons without an Israeli troop withdrawal first. His peace efforts in Ukraine have gone nowhere as Vladimir Putin bets he can squeeze more out of Kyiv by continuing the war rather than settling for an agreement. And the nearly six-month war in Iran is now at a stalemate, with efforts to end it peacefully running into Trump’s maximalism and Tehran’s suspicion that whatever they sign with the Americans won’t be implemented anyway.
Establishing another set of negotiations with North Korea would therefore distract from some of the negative press coverage of the last few months and provide Trump with another opportunity to showcase the diplomatic acumen he so often brags about in public. It could also have the potential of being historic; the chance to close the book on the North Korean nuclear problem—however unlikely and whatever form that would take—would offer Trump a significant foreign policy victory that none of his predecessors were able to reach. "He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons," said Trump.
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